| 122 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
When Sir Walter returned
from London, he brought with him Mr Blore’s
detailed plans for the completion of Abbotsford; the wall and gateway of the court in
front; and the beautiful open screen-work of stone connecting the house with the garden;
this last having been originally devised by himself, and constituting certainly the most
graceful feature about the edifice. The foundations towards the river were forthwith laid,
and some little progress was made during the autumn; but he was very reluctant to authorize
the demolition of the rustic porch of the old cottage, with its luxuriant overgrowth of
roses and jessamines; kept it standing for months after his workpeople complained of the
obstruction—and indeed could not make up his mind to sign the death-warrant of this
favourite bower until winter had
| CHIEFSWOOD—1821. | 123 |
There my wife and I spent this summer and autumn of 1821—the first of
several seasons, which will ever dwell on my memory as the happiest of my life. We were
near enough Abbotsford to partake as often as we liked of its brilliant and constantly
varying society; yet could do so without being exposed to the worry and exhaustion of
spirit which the daily reception of new comers entailed upon all the family, except
Sir Walter himself. But, in truth, even he was not
always proof against the annoyances connected with such a style of open-house-keeping. Even
his temper sunk sometimes under the solemn applauses of learned dulness, the vapid raptures
of painted and periwigged dowagers, the horse-leech avidity with which underbred foreigners
urged their questions, and the pompous simpers of condescending magnates. When sore beset
at home in this way, he would every now and then discover that he had some very particular
business to attend to on an outlying part of his estate, and craving the indulgence of his
guests overnight, appear at the cabin in the glen before its inhabitants were astir in the
morning. The clatter of Sibyl Grey’s hoofs, the yelping of
Mustard and Spice, and his own
joyous shout of reveillée under our windows, were the signal
that he had burst his toils and meant for that day to “take his ease in his
inn.” On descending, he was to be found seated with all his dogs and ours
about him, under a spreading ash that overshadowed half the bank between the cottage and
the
| 124 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
| CHIEFSWOOD—1821. | 125 |
When circumstances permitted, he usually spent one evening at least in the week at our little cottage; and almost as frequently he did the like with the Fergusons, to whose table he could bring chance visiters, when he pleased, with equal freedom as to his daughter’s. Indeed it seemed to be much a matter of chance, any fine day when there had been no alarming invasion of the Southron, whether the three families (which, in fact, made but one) should dine at Abbotsford, at Huntly Burn, or at Chiefswood; and at none of them was the party considered quite complete, unless it included also Mr Laidlaw. Death has laid a heavy hand upon that circle—as happy a circle I believe as ever met. Bright eyes now closed in dust, gay voices for ever silenced, seem to haunt me as I write. With three exceptions, they are all gone. Even since the last of these volumes was finished, she whom I may now sadly record as, next to Sir Walter himself, the chief ornament and delight of all those simple meetings—she to whose love I owed my own place in them—Scott’s eldest daughter, the one of all his children who in countenance, mind, and manners, most resembled himself, and who indeed was as like him in all things as a gentle innocent woman can ever be to a great man deeply tried and skilled in the struggles and perplexities of active life—she, too, is no more. And in the very hour that saw her laid in her grave, the only other female survivor, her dearest friend Margaret Ferguson, breathed her last also.—But enough—and more than I intended—I must resume the story of Abbotsford.
During several weeks of that delightful summer, Scott had under his roof Mr William
Erskine and two of his daughters; this being, I believe, their first visit
to Tweedside since the death of Mrs Erskine in
September 1819. He had probably made a point of having his
| 126 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
This reminds me that I have not yet attempted any sketch of the person and
manners of Scott’s most intimate friend. Their
case was no contradiction to the old saying, that the most attached comrades are often very
unlike each other in character and temperament. The mere physical contrast was as strong as
could well be, and this is not unworthy of notice here; for Erskine was, I think, the only man in whose society
Scott took great pleasure, during the more vigorous part of his
life, that had neither constitution nor inclination for any of the rough bodily exercises
in which he himself delighted.
| WILLIAM ERSKINE—1821. | 127 |
Erskine had as yet been rather unfortunate in his
professional career, and thought a sheriffship by no means the kind of advancement due to
his merits, and which his connexions might naturally have secured for him. These
circumstances had at the time when I first observed him tinged his demeanour; he had come
to intermingle a certain wayward snappishness now and then with his forensic exhibitions,
and in private seemed inclined (though altogether incapable of abandoning the Tory party)
to say bitter things of people in high
| 128 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Meanwhile he shrunk from the collisions of general society in Edinburgh, and lived almost exclusively in his own little circle of intimates. His conversation, though somewhat precise and finical on the first impression, was rich in knowledge. His literary ambition, active and aspiring at the outset, had long before this time merged in his profound veneration for Scott; but he still read a great deal, and did so as much I believe with a view to assisting Scott by hints and suggestions, as for his own amusement. He had much of his friend’s tact in extracting the picturesque from old, and, generally speaking, dull books; and in bringing out his stores he often showed a great deal of quaint humour and sly wit.
Scott, on his side, respected, trusted, and loved him,
much as an affectionate husband does the wife who gave him her heart in youth, and thinks
his thoughts rather than her own in the evening of life; he soothed, cheered,
| COUNTESS PURGSTALL. | 129 |
Among the common friends of their young days, of whom they both delighted
to speak—and always spoke with warm and equal affection—was the sister of their friend Cranstoun,
the confidant of Scott’s first unfortunate
love, whom neither had now seen for a period of
more than twenty years. This lady had undergone domestic afflictions more than sufficient
to have crushed almost any spirit but her own. Her husband, the Count
Purgstall, had died some years before this time, leaving her an only son, a
youth of the most amiable disposition, and possessing abilities which, had he lived to
develope them, must have secured for him a high station in the annals of genius. This hope
of her eyes, the last heir of an illustrious lineage, followed his father to the tomb in
the nineteenth year of his age. The desolate Countess was urged by her family in Scotland
to return, after this bereavement, to her native country; but she had vowed to her son on
his deathbed that one day her dust should be mingled with his; and no argument could induce
her to depart from the resolution of remaining in solitary Styria. By her desire, a valued
friend of the house of Purgstall, who had been born and bred up on their estates, the
celebrated Orientalist, Joseph von Hammer, compiled
a little memoir of “The Two Last Counts of
Purgstall,” which he put forth, in January 1821, under the title of
“Denkmahl,” or
Monument; and of this work the Countess sent a copy to Sir Walter
(with whom
| 130 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“You cannot imagine how much I was interested and affected by receiving your token of your kind recollection, after the interval of so many years. Your brother Henry breakfasted with me yesterday, and gave me the letter and the book, which served me as a matter of much melancholy reflection for many hours.
“Hardly any thing makes the mind recoil so much upon itself, as the being suddenly and strongly recalled to times long past, and that by the voice of one whom we have so much loved and respected. Do not think I have ever forgotten you, or the many happy days I passed in Frederick Street, in society which fate has separated so far, and for so many years.
“The little volume was particularly acceptable to me, as it acquainted me with many circumstances, of which distance and imperfect communication had left me either entirely ignorant, or had transmitted only inaccurate information.
“Alas! my dear friend, what can the utmost efforts of
friendship offer you, beyond the sympathy which, however sincere, must sound
like an empty compliment
| LETTER TO COUNTESS PURGSTALL. | 131 |
“In truth, I have long given up poetry. I have had my day with the public; and being no great believer in poetical immortality, I was very well pleased to rise a winner, without continuing the game, till I was beggared of any credit I had acquired. Besides, I felt the prudence of giving way before the more forcible and powerful genius of Byron. If I were either greedy, or jealous of poetical fame—and both are strangers to my nature—I might comfort myself with the thought, that I would hesitate to strip myself to the contest so fearlessly as Byron does; or to command the wonder and terror of the public, by exhibiting, in my own person, the sublime attitude of the dying gladiator. But with the old frankness of twenty years since, I will fairly own, that this same delicacy of mine may arise more from conscious want of vigour and inferiority, than from a delicate dislike to the nature of the conflict. At any rate, there is a time for every thing, and without swearing oaths to it, I think my time for poetry has gone by.
“My health suffered horridly last year, I think from
over labour and excitation; and though it is now apparently restored to its
usual tone, yet during the long and painful disorder (spasms in the stomach),
and the
| 132 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“In this humour, I often think of passing a few weeks on the continent—a summer vacation if I can—and of course my attraction to Gratz would be very strong. I fear this is the only chance of our meeting in this world, we, who once saw each other daily! For I understand from George and Henry, that there is little chance of your coming here. And when I look around me, and consider how many changes you will see in feature, form, and fashion, amongst all you knew and loved; and how much, no sudden squall, or violent tempest, but the slow and gradual progress of life’s long voyage, has severed all the gallant fellowships whom you left spreading their sails to the morning breeze, I really am not sure that you would have much pleasure.
“The gay and wild romance of life is over with all of us. The real, dull, and stern history of humanity has made a far greater progress over our heads; and age, dark and unlovely, has laid his crutch over the stoutest fellow’s shoulders. One thing your old society may boast, that they have all run their course with honour, and almost all with distinction; and the brother suppers of Frederick Street have certainly made a very considerable figure in the world, as was to be expected, from her talents under whose auspices they were assembled.
“One of the most pleasant sights which you would see
in Scotland, as it now stands, would be your brother George in possession of the most beautiful and
| LETTER TO COUNTESS PURGSTALL. | 133 |
“This is a melancholy letter, but it is chiefly so from the sad tone of yours—who have had such real disasters to lament while mine is only the humorous sadness, which a retrospect on human life is sure to produce on the most prosperous. For my own course of life, I have only to be ashamed of its prosperity, and afraid of its termination; for I have little reason, arguing on the doctrine of chances, to hope that the same good fortune will attend me for ever. I have had an affectionate and promising family, many friends, few unfriends, and I think, no enemies—and more of fame and fortune than mere literature ever procured for a man before.
“I dwell among my own people, and have many whose happiness is dependent on me, and which I study to the best of my power. I trust my temper, which you know is by nature good and easy, has not been spoiled by flattery or prosperity; and therefore I have escaped entirely that irritability of disposition which I think is planted, like the slave in the poet’s chariot, to prevent his enjoying his triumph.
“Should things, therefore, change with me—and in
these times, or indeed in any times, such change is to be apprehended—I trust I
shall be able to surrender these adventitious advantages, as I would my upper
| 134 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
As I may have no occasion hereafter to allude to the early friend with whose sorrows Scott thus sympathized amidst the meridian splendours of his own worldly career, I may take this opportunity of mentioning, that Captain Basil Hall’s conjecture of her having been the original of Diana Vernon, appeared to myself from the first chimerical; and that I have since heard those who knew her best in the days of her intercourse with Sir Walter, express the same opinion in the most decided manner. But to return.
While the Pirate was advancing under Mr Erskine’s eye, Scott had even more than the usual allowance of minor literary operations on hand. He edited a reprint of a curious old book, called, ‘Franck’s Northern Memoir, and the Contemplative Angler;’ and he also prepared for the press a volume published soon after, under the title of ‘Chronological Notes on Scottish Affairs, 1680 to 1701, from the Diary of Lord Fountainhall.’ The professional writings of that celebrated old lawyer, had been much in his hands from his early years, on account of the incidental light which they throw on the events of a most memorable period in Scottish history: and he seems to have contemplated some more considerable selection from his remains, but to have dropped these intentions, on being given to understand that they might interfere with those of Lord Fountainhall’s accomplished representative, the present
* In communicating this letter to my friend Captain Hall, when he was engaged in his Account of a Visit to Madame de Purgstall during the last months of her life, I suggested to him, in consequence of an expression about Scott’s health, that it must have been written in 1820. The date of the “Denkmahl,” to which it refers, is, however, sufficient evidence that I ought to have said 1821. |
| PROJECTS OF CONSTABLE—1821. | 135 |
In August appeared the volume of the Novelist’s Library, containing Scott’s Life of Smollett; and it being now ascertained that
John Ballantyne had died a debtor, the editor
offered to proceed with this series of prefaces, on the footing that the whole profits of
the work should go to his widow. Mr Constable, whose
health was now beginning to break, had gone southwards in quest of more genial air, and was
at Hastings when he heard of this proposition. He immediately wrote to me, entreating me to
represent to Sir Walter that the undertaking, having been coldly
received at first, was unlikely to grow in favour if continued on the same plan—that in his
opinion the bulk of the volumes, and the small type of their text, had been unwisely chosen
for a work of mere entertainment, and could only be suitable for one of reference; that
Ballantyne’s Novelist’s Library, therefore, ought
to be stopped at once, and another in a lighter shape, to range with the late collected
edition of the first series of the Waverley
Romances, announced with his own name as publisher, and
Scott’s as editor. He proposed at the same time to commence
the issue of a Select Library of English Poetry, with prefaces and a few notes by the same
hand; and calculating that each of these collections should extend to twenty-five volumes,
and that the publication of both might be concluded within two years—“the writing
of the prefaces, &c. forming perhaps an occasional relief from more important
labours”!—the bookseller offered to pay their editor in all the sum of
L.6000: a small portion of which sum, as he hinted, would undoubtedly be more than
Mrs John Ballantyne could ever hope to derive
from the prosecution of her husband’s
| 136 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Lady Louisa Stuart had not, I fancy, read Scott’s Lives of the Novelists until, some years after
this time, they were collected into two little piratical duodecimos by a Parisian
bookseller; and on her then expressing her admiration of them, together with her
astonishment that the speculation, of which they formed a part, should have attracted
little notice of any sort, he answered as follows:—“I am delighted they afford any
entertainment, for they are rather flimsily written, being done merely to oblige a
friend: they were yoked to a great, ill-conditioned, lubberly, double-columned book,
which they were as useful to tug along as a set of fleas would be to draw a mail-coach.
It is very difficult to answer your ladyship’s curious question concerning change
of taste; but whether in young or old, it takes place insensibly without the parties
being aware of it. A grand-aunt of my own, Mrs Keith of
Ravelstone, who was a person of some condition, being a daughter of
Sir John Swinton of Swinton—lived with
unabated vigour of intellect to a very advanced age. She was very fond of reading, and
enjoyed it to the last of her long life. One day she asked me, when we happened to be
alone together, whether I had ever seen Mrs
Behn’s novels?—I confessed the charge.—Whether I could get her a
sight of them?—I said, with
| BALLANTYNE’S NOVELIST’S LIBRARY. | 137 |
| 138 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
Among other miscellaneous work of this autumn, Scott amused some leisure hours with writing a series of “Private Letters,” supposed to have been discovered in the repositories of a Noble English Family, and giving a picture of manners in town and country during the early part of the reign of James I. These letters were printed as fast as he penned them, in a handsome quarto form, and he furnished the margin with a running commentary of notes, drawn up in the character of a disappointed chaplain, a keen Whig, or rather Radical, overflowing on all occasions with spleen against Monarchy and Aristocracy. When the printing had reached the 72d page, however, he was told candidly by Erskine, by James Ballantyne, and also by myself, that, however clever his imitation of the epistolary style of the period in question, he was throwing away in these letters the materials of as good a romance as he had ever penned; and a few days afterwards he said to me patting Sibyl’s neck till she danced under him—“You were all quite right: if the letters had passed for genuine they would have found favour only with a few musty antiquaries, and if the joke were detected, there was not story enough to carry it off. I shall burn the sheets, and give you Bonny King Jamie and all his tail in the old shape, as soon as I can get Captain Goffe within view of the gallows.”
Such was the origin of the “Fortunes of Nigel.” As one set of the uncompleted Letters has been preserved, I shall here insert a specimen of them, in which the reader will easily recognise the germ of more than one scene of the novel.
“Towching this new mishappe of Sir Thomas, whereof your Lordshippe makes querie
of me, I wolde hartilie that I could, truth
| “PRIVATE LETTERS OF THE 17TH CENTURY.” | 139 |
“My Lorde, the braule which hath befallen
chaunced this waye, and not otherwise. It hap’d that one Raines, the master of the ordinarie where his
honour Sir Thomas eteth well nie dailie
(when he is not in attendance at courte, wherein he is perchance more slacke
than were wise), shoulde assemble some of the beste who haunte his house,
havyng diet ther for money. The purpose, as shewn forthe, was to tast a new
piece of choice wyne, and ther Sir
| 140 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
| “PRIVATE LETTERS OF THE 17TH CENTURY.” | 141 |
“My Lord, this is the hole of the mater, so far as my earnest and anxious serch had therein, as well for the sake of my blode-relation to your honourable house, as frome affectioun to my kinsman Sir Thomas, and especiallie in humble obedience to your regarded commandes. As for other offence given by Sir Thomas, whereof idle bruites are current, as that he should have call’d Master Darcie a codshead or an woodcocke, I can lerne of no such termes, nor anie nere to them, only that when he said he cared not for his game or ernest, he flung down the woodcock’s bill, to which it may be there was sticking a part of the head, though myinformant saithe otherwise; and he stode so close by Sir Thomas, that he herde the quart-pot whissel as it flew betwixt there too hedes. Of damage done among the better sort, there is not muche; some cuts and thrusts ther wer, that had their sequents in blood and woundes, but none dedlie. Of the rascal sort, one fellowe is kill’d, and sundrie hurt. Hob Hilton, your brother’s grome, for life a maymed man, having a slash over the right hande, for faulte of a gauntlet.—Marry he has been a brave knave and a sturdie: and if it pleses your goode Lordshippe, I fynd he wolde gladlie be prefer’d, when tym is fitting, to the office of bedle. He hath a burlie frame, and scare-babe visage; he shall do wel enoughe in such charge, though lackyng the use of four fingers.* The hurtyng of the constabel is a worse mater; as also the anger that is between the courtiers and Graie’s-Inn men; so that yf close hede be not given, I doubt me we shall here of more Gesta Graiorum. Thei will not be persuaded but that the quarrel betwixt Sir Thomas and young Darcie was simulate; and that Master Dutton’s hurte wes wilful; whereas, on my lyfe, it will not be founde so.
| 142 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“The counseyl hath taen the matter up, and I here H. M. spoke many things gravely and solidly, and as one who taketh to hert such unhappie chaunces, both against brauling and drinking. Sir Thomas, with others, hath put in plegge to be forthcoming; and so strictly taken up wes the unhappie mater of the Scots Lord,* that if Booth shulde die, which God forefend, there might be a fereful reckoning: For one cityzen sayeth, I trust falslie, he saw Sir Thomas draw back his hand, having in it a drawn sword, just as the constabel felle. It seems but too constant, that thei were within but short space of ech other when this unhappy chaunce befel. My Lord, it is not for me to saie what course your Lordshippe should steer in this storm, onlie that the Lord Chansellour’s gode worde wil, as resen is, do yeman’s service. Schulde it come to fine or imprisonment, as is to be fered, why should not your Lordshippe cast the weyght into the balance for that restraint which goode Sir Thomas must nedes bear himself, rather than for such penalty as must nedes pinche the purses of his frendes. Your Lordship always knoweth best; but surely the yonge knyght hath but litel reson to expect that you shulde further engage yourself in such bondes as might be necessary to bring this fine into the Chequer. Nether have wise men helde it unfit that heated bloode be coold by sequestration for a space from temptation. There is dout, moreover, whether he may not hold himself bounden, according to the forme of faythe which such gallants and stirring spirits profess, to have further meeting with Master Philip Darcie, or this same Button, or with bothe, on this rare dependance of an woodcocke’s hede, and a quart-pot; certeynly, methoughte, the last tym we met, and when he bare himself towards me, as I have premonish’d your Lordshippe, that he was fitter for quiet residence under safe keeping, than for a free walk amongst peceful men.
“And thus, my Lord, ye have the whole mater before you; trew ye shall find it,—my dutie demands it,—unpleasing, I cannot amende it: But I truste neither more evil in esse nor in posse, than I have set forth as above. From one, who is ever your Lordshippe’s most bounden to command, &c.—J. H.”
I think it must have been about the middle of October that he dropped the scheme of this fictitious correspondence. I well remember the morning that he began
* “Perhaps the case of Lord Sanquhar. His Lordship had the misfortune to be hanged, for causing a poor fencing-master to be assassinated, which seems the unhappy matter alluded to.” |
| FORTUNES OF NIGEL—NOV. 1821. | 143 |
|
“Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore
In Novo orbe
————————Pertinax, my Surly,*
|
|
* The fun of this application of “my Surly” will not escape any one who remembers the kind and good-humoured Terry’s power of |
| 144 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
|
Again I say to thee aloud, Be rich,
This day thou shalt have ingots,”—
|
This was another period of “refreshing the machine.” Early in November, I find Sir Walter writing thus to Constable’s partner, Mr Cadell: “I want two books, Malcolm’s London Redivivus, or some such name, and Derham’s Artificial Clockmaker.” [The reader of Nigel will understand these requests.] “All good luck to you, commercially and otherwise. I am grown a shabby letter-writer, for my eyes are not so young as they were, and I grudge every thing that does not go to press.” Such a feeling must often have been present with him; yet I can find no period when he grudged writing a letter that might by possibility be of use to any of his family or friends; and I must quote one of the many which about this very time reached his second son.
“I had the pleasure of your letter two days since, being the first symptom of your being alive and well which I have had directly since you left Abbotsford. I beg you will be more frequent in your communications, which must always be desirable when you are at such a distance. I am very glad to hear you are attending closely to make up lost time. Sport is a good thing both for health and pastime; but you must never allow it to interfere with serious study. You have, my dear boy, your own fortune to make, with better assistance of every kind than I had when the world first opened on
assuming a peculiarly saturnine aspect. This queer grimness of look was invaluable to the comedian in several of his best parts; and in private he often called it up when his heart was most cheerful. |
| LETTER TO MR CHARLES SCOTT. | 145 |
“Our Abbotsford hunt went off extremely well. We killed seven hares, I think, and our dogs behaved very well. A large party dined, and we sat down about twenty-five at table. Every gentleman present sung a song, tant bien que mal, excepting Walter, Lockhart, and I myself. I believe I should add the melancholy Jaques, Mr Waugh, who, on this occasion, however, was not melancholy.† In short, we had a very merry and social party.
“There is, I think, no news here. The hedger, Captain Davidson,‡ has had a bad accident, and injured
* Mr Villiers Surtees, a school-fellow of Charles Scott’s at Lampeter, had spent the vacation of this year at Abbotsford, He is now one of the Supreme Judges at the Mauritius. † Mr Waugh was a retired West Indian, of very dolorous aspect, who had settled at Melrose, built a large house there, surrounded it and his garden with a huge wall, and seldom emerged from his own precincts except upon the grand occasion of the Abbotsford Hunt. The villagers called him “the Melancholy Man”—and considered him as already “dreein’ his dole for doings amang the poor niggers.” ‡ This hedger had got the title of Captain, in memory of his gallantry at some row. |
| 146 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“You ask me about reading history. You are quite right
to read Clarendon—his style is a little
long-winded; but, on the other hand, his characters may match those of the
ancient historians, and one thinks they would know the very men if you were to
meet them in society. Few English writers have the same precision, either in
describing the actors in great scenes, or the deeds which they performed. He
was, you are aware, himself deeply engaged in the scenes which he depicts, and
therefore colours them with the individual feeling, and sometimes, doubtless,
with the partiality of a partisan. Yet I think he is, on the whole, a fair
writer; for though he always endeavours to excuse King
Charles, yet he points out his mistakes and errors, which
certainly were neither few nor of slight consequence. Some of his history
regards the country in which you are now a resident; and you will find that
much of the fate of that Great Civil War turned on the successful resistance
made by the city of Gloucester, and the relief of that place by the Earl of Essex, by means of the trained bands of
London, a sort of force resembling our local militia or volunteers. They are
the subject of ridicule in all the plays and poems of the time; yet the sort of
practice of arms which they had acquired enabled them to withstand the charge
of Prince Rupert and his gallant cavalry,
who were then foiled for the first time. Read, my dear Charles, read, and read that which is useful.
Man only differs from birds and beasts, because he has the means of availing
himself of the knowledge acquired by his predecessors. The swallow builds the
same nest which its father and mother built; and the
| MESSRS CONSTABLE—1821. | 147 |
“I beg my compliments to Mr and Mrs Williams; I have left no room to sign myself your affectionate father,
To return to business and Messrs Constable. Sir Walter concluded before
he went to town in November another negotiation of importance with this house. They agreed
to give for the remaining copyright of the four novels published between December 1819 and
January 1821 to wit,—Ivanhoe, the Monastery, the Abbot, and Kenilworth—the sum of five thousand guineas. The stipulation about not
revealing the author’s name, under a penalty of L.2000, was repeated. By these four
novels, the fruits of scarcely more than twelve months’ labour,
| 148 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
I cannot pretend to guess what the actual state of Scott’s pecuniary affairs was at the time when John Ballantyne’s death relieved them from one great source of complication and difficulty. But I have said enough to satisfy every reader, that when he began the second, and far the larger division of his building at Abbotsford, he must have contemplated the utmost sum it could cost him as a mere trifle in relation to the resources at his command. He must have reckoned on clearing L.30,000 at least in the course of a couple of years by the novels written within such a period. The publisher of his Tales, who best knew how they were produced, and what they brought of gross profit, and who must have had the strongest interest in keeping the author’s name untarnished by any risk or reputation of failure, would willingly, as we have seen, have given him L.6000 more within a space of two years for works of a less serious sort, likely to be despatched at leisure hours, without at all interfering with the main manufacture. But alas!—even this was not all. Messrs Constable had such faith in the prospective fertility of his imagination, that they were by this time quite ready to sign bargains and grant bills for novels and romances to be produced hereafter, but of which the subjects and the names were alike unknown to them and to the man from whose pen they were to proceed. A forgotten satirist well says,
“The active principle within Works on some brains the effect of gin;” |
| MESSRS CONSTABLE—1821. | 149 |
He was as eager to do as they could be to suggest—and this I well knew at the time. I had, however, no notion, until all his correspondence lay before me, of the extent to which he had permitted himself thus early to build on the chances of life, health, and continued popularity. Before the Fortunes of Nigel issued from the press, Scott had exchanged instruments, and received his bookseller’s bills, for no less than four “works of fiction”—not one of them otherwise described in the deeds of agreement—to be produced in unbroken succession, each of them to fill at least three volumes, but with proper saving clauses as to increase of copy-money, in case any of them should run to four. And within two years all this anticipation had been wiped off by Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, St Ronan’s Well, and Redgauntlet; and the new castle was by that time complete, and overflowing with all its splendour; but by that time the end also was approaching!
| 150 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
The splendid Romance of the Pirate was published in the beginning of December, 1821; and the wild freshness of its atmosphere, the beautiful contrast of Minna and Brenda, and the exquisitely drawn character of Captain Cleveland, found the reception which they deserved. The work was analyzed with remarkable care in the Quarterly Review by a critic second to few, either in the manly heartiness of his sympathy with the felicities of genius, or in the honest acuteness of his censure in cases of negligence and confusion. This was the second of a series of articles in that Journal, conceived and executed in a tone widely different from those given by Mr Gifford himself to Waverley, Guy Mannering, and the Antiquary. I fancy the old gentleman had become convinced that he had made a grievous mistake in this matter, before he acquiesced in Scott’s proposal about “quartering the child” in January 1816; and if he was fortunate in finding a contributor able and willing to treat the rest of Father Jedediah’s progeny with excellent skill, and in a spirit more accordant with the just and general sentiments of the public, we must also recognise a pleasing and honourable trait of character in the frankness with which the recluse and often despotic editor now resigned the pen to Mr Senior.
On the 13th December Sir Walter received a copy of Cain, as yet unpublished, from Lord Byron’s bookseller, who had been instructed to ask whether he had any objection to having the “Mystery” dedicated to him. He replied in these words:—
“I accept with feelings of great obligation the
flattering proposal of Lord Byron to prefix
my name to
| CAIN—THE BEACON—1821. | 151 |
“I do not see how any one can accuse the author himself of Manicheism. The devil takes the language of that sect, doubtless; because, not being able to deny the existence of the Good Principle, he endeavours to exalt himself—the Evil Principle—to a seeming equality with the Good; but such arguments, in the mouth of such a being, can only be used to deceive and to betray. Lord Byron might have made this more evident, by placing in the mouth of Adam, or of some good and protecting spirit, the reasons which render the existence of moral evil consistent with the general benevolence of the Deity. The great key to the mystery is, perhaps, the imperfection of our own faculties, which see and feel strongly the partial evils which press upon us, but know too little of the general system of the universe, to be aware how the existence of these is to be reconciled with the benevolence of the great Creator.—Ever yours truly,
In some preceding narratives of Sir Walter Scott’s Life,
I find the principal feature for 1821 to be an affair
| 152 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
| THE BEACON—1821. | 153 |
A more pitiable mass of blunder and imbecility was never heaped together
than the whole of this affair exhibited; and from a very early period Scott was so disgusted with it that he never even saw the
newspaper, of which Whigs and Radicals believed, or affected to believe, that the conduct
and management were in some degree at least under his dictation. The results were
lamentable: the Beacon was made the subject of
Parliamentary discussion, from which the then heads of Scotch Toryism did not escape in any
very consolatory plight; but above all, the Beacon bequeathed its
rancour and rashness, though not its ability, to a Glasgow Paper of similar form and
pretensions, entitled The Sentinel. By that
organ the personal quarrels of the Beacon were taken up and
pursued with relentless industry; and finally, the Glasgow editors disagreeing, some moment
of angry confusion betrayed a box of MSS., by which the late Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck was revealed as the writer of certain
truculent enough pasquinades. A leading Edinburgh
Whig, who had been
| 154 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
This tragedy occurred in the early part of 1822; and soon afterwards followed those debates on the whole business in the House of Commons, for which, if any reader feels curiosity about them, I refer him to the Parliamentary Histories of the time. A single extract from one of Scott’s letters to a member of the then Government in London will be sufficient for my purpose; and abundantly confirm what I have said as to his personal part in the affairs of the Beacon.
“. . . . I had the fate of Cassandra in the Beacon matter from beginning to end. I endeavoured in vain to
impress on them the necessity of having an editor who was really up to the
business, and could mix spirit with discretion—one of those “gentlemen of
the press,” who understand the exact lengths to which they can go in
their vocation. Then I wished them in place of that Bond, to have each thrown down his hundred pounds, and never enquired
more about it—and lastly, I exclaimed against the Crown Counsel being at all concerned. In the two first
remonstrances I was not listened to—in the last I thought myself successful,
and it was not till long afterwards that I heard they had actually subscribed
the Bond. Then the hasty renunciation of the thing, as if we had been doing
something very atrocious, put me mad altogether. The younger brethren too,
allege that they are put into the front of the fight, and deserted on the first
pinch; and on my word I cannot say the accusation is altogether false, though I
have been doing my best to mediate betwixt the par-
| THE BEACON—1821. | 155 |
| ≪ PREV | NEXT ≫ |
